The Abstract Bogeyman. An idea I am playing with. Whether it is Empire (Hardt/Negri), The Cathedral (Moldbug), Spectacle (Debord) or Kyriarchy (Fiorenza), the Abstract Bogeyman is the "bad guy" in a given narrative that is the source of most if not all problems in the world.
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Is the distinction from non-abstract that nobody espouses it? There are people who claim to be communist, capitalist, Islamic etc, and offer counter-bogeyman defensive accounts of those abstractions. Nobody does that for ‘cathedral’ etc because nobody identifies with it.
I’d posit that if a Bogeyman only exists in the fear of an ideology that constructs it as a threat, and nobody alt-constructs it as a force for good, it isn’t meaningful. It’s something between a straw man and a conspiracy theory. Doesn’t apply to natural phenomena (bogeythings)
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A non-abstract bogeyman might be Hitler, who was a specific person at a specific point in time. Whereas Nazism is an abstract bogeyman.
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hmm otoh there are actually people who literally espouse it and go around sieg heiling. I forget who said it, but ironic fascism is also fascism etc. So not entirely a bogeyman. But probably an overstated threat in 2019 as opposed to 1933.
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Interesting: Non-Ab / Ab. Embodied / Non-Embodied might be another way to say it. Maybe there is an element missing to create a 2x2. Bogeyman: "a mythical creature used by adults to frighten children into good behaviour." Ab-Bogey is to frighten adults into a narrative.
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